BRITAIN TO CANADA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19917, 10 April 1928, Page 9

BRITAIN TO CANADA.

MACHINE FOR COURTENAY. CONSTRUCTION IN ITALY. OTTAWA, April 4. The British airman, Captain F. T. Courtenay, has completed plans for a transatlantic flight from Britain to Canada in a four-engined . Dornier allmet il flying boat. The flight will be under the auspices of the Canadian Government. It will be the first occasion on which a transatlantic flight has received the official sanction or backing of any Government. The plane in which the attempt will lie made, and which is now being constructed in Italy, is entirely different faom the aeroplanes used in the recent tragic attempts to cross the Atlantic from east to west, and it is hoped to repeat Lindbergh's successful flight from west to east. The Dornier flying boat Captain Courtenay will use will be powered by four Bristol-Jupiter engines. The route chosen for the flight is from Britain to the Azores, then to Newfoundland, and up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal ard Ottawa. On September 4, 1927, Captain Courtenay, accompanied by Flying-Officer Downer, Mr. Little and a Canadian samed Hosmer, left Southampton in early morning in the "Whale" flying-boat in an attempt to fly to Canada ard back. Shortly after leaving the plane ran into fog, squalls and heavy driving rain, and, after battling against the elements for Rome time, Captain Courtenay, seeing it was impossible to make any headway, landed near Corunna, Spain. It was his intention to make another start from there when the weather cleared, but the winter then set in properly, and the flight had to be abandoned.